Photos and video by Jay Calderon, The Desert Sun

More than 100 people gathered on a dry stretch of dirt at Red Hill Bay, where the lake's shoreline was receding quickly. They were there to break ground on the Salton Sea's first major restoration project, which would create hundreds of acres of habitat for migratory birds and help keep lung-damaging dust out of the air. Several public officials — including state lawmakers Eduardo Garcia and Ben Hueso — grabbed shovels and posed for a photo scooping dirt out of the ground, with a bulldozer in the background.

“Red Hill Bay, 10 years ago, was a vibrant part of the Salton Sea. Thousands of birds," Chris Schoneman, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, told the group that morning. "And then the Salton Sea started to dry up. We're here today to start to do something about that. We're going to get it wet again."

Three years later, the dirt at Red Hill Bay is still dry, and it could be dry for another year or more. The shoreline is receding faster than ever. The lake's few remaining fish have been dying off rapidly. And state officials have fallen even further behind on their promise to prevent an ecological and public health disaster at this oasis in the desert.

"They're just blowing deadline after deadline," said Michael Cohen, a water researcher at the Pacific Institute think tank. "It's bleak."

It's not like nothing has been happening at Red Hill Bay. Schoneman said federal workers have spent "thousands of hours" building berms that will hold water in place. On a hot morning earlier this month, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employee drove a road grader across one of those berms, digging a narrow trench into the side. A plastic liner will be inserted into the trench, to stop water from seeping out of the artificial wetlands and interfering with underground geothermal energy leases held by private companies.

"This project has certainly taken longer than we anticipated," Schoneman said, as he drove his white pickup truck across dry lakebed at Red Hill Bay. "But at the same time, it's kind of cracked a hard nut. We've conquered what it takes to work out here."

The area's unusual and unpredictable geology is one reason for the slow progress. But it's not the only reason. Land-use negotiations between state officials and the Imperial Irrigation District have delayed another large-scale wetlands project, the Species Conservation Habitat. And some critics say it's still unclear whether state officials have fully accepted responsibility for restoring the lake, as they promised to do 15 years ago.

"If the governor had emphasized this like he's emphasizing climate and some other issues, there would be some real progress at the Salton Sea," said Cohen, from the Pacific Institute. "But at the end of the day, the governor has not made this a priority."

The Red Hill Bay restoration project will cover about a square mile of exposed lakebed with shallow-water wetlands habitat. The site is seen here on Sept. 12, 2018.

(Photo: Jay Calderon/The Desert Sun)

In the meantime, the Salton Sea keeps deteriorating.

For most of this century, the lake's decline was slowed by bursts of "mitigation water" from the Colorado River, designed to give the state time to implement a restoration plan. The last mitigation water was delivered in December. Over the past year, the surface of the lake has fallen by a foot — double the average rate of decline over the last 14 years.

Fish populations have also continued to plummet. Schoneman, the Fish and Wildlife Service biologist, said even the mass fish die-offs that had become a regular feature of the Salton Sea — creating a stench like rotten eggs — have become less common.

A turkey vulture at the Salton Sea, seen near the Red Hill Bay restoration project site on Sept. 12, 2018.(Photo: Jay Calderon/The Desert Sun)

The Salton Sea is California's largest lake by surface area. But it has no natural inflows and has been shrinking as runoff from nearby farms declines. As the lake has gotten saltier, fish populations have crashed, leaving less and less food for migratory birds. The tens of thousands of acres of dry lakebed that will be exposed in the coming decade are becoming a public health crisis, allowing the desert's fierce winds to blow hazardous dust particles into the air breathed by residents of the Imperial and Coachella valleys.

The last few years have been marked by unprecedented signs of progress. After more than a decade during which the state largely ignored its promise to restore the lake, Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature allocated $80 million for the Salton Sea. Voters approved another $200 million for the lake as part of a bond measure in June, and they'll have a chance to approve $200 million more through another bond in November.

Large pipes will bring Salton Sea water inland to Red Hill Bay, where it will be mixed with fresh water from the Alamo River to create wetland bird habitat. The pipes are seen here on Sept. 12, 2018.(Photo: Jay Calderon/The Desert Sun)

At the moment, they're already behind.

Bruce Wilcox, the state official in charge of Salton Sea restoration, said California won't meet its first target in the 10-year plan, which is to build 500 acres of restoration projects in 2018. At least half of those acres are supposed to provide habitat for fish and wildlife.

Wilcox said he's hopeful the Imperial Irrigation District will complete 500 acres of dust-control projects, which can involve surface roughening or planting vegetation. But those measures won't make the lakebed wet again. They won't create new habitat.

"It always takes longer than you think it’s going to take. We're trying our very best to get caught up," Wilcox said during a recent interview at his office in Palm Desert. "At the same token, we don't want to screw something up. We don't want to build something that turns out to not be what we need just because we were in a hurry to build it."

Wilcox said the state will try to make up for lost time by expanding several of the habitat restoration projects scheduled to be built at the Salton Sea over the next few years.

One of those projects has already been delayed for over a decade.

California voters approved $47 million for the Salton Sea in 2006, most of which was allocated toward a 640-acre, deep-water habitat project at the south end of the lake known as the Species Conservation Habitat. Cohen said it was envisioned as a pilot project that would help officials figure out the best ways to improve ecosystem health.

But construction of the Species Conservation Habitat still hasn't begun. The latest delay has been caused, at least in part, by a dispute between state officials and the Imperial Irrigation District, or IID, which owns much of the ground surrounding the Salton Sea.

Biologist Chris Schoneman of the Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge points out the layers of sand above the clay at the Red Hill Bay restoration project site on Sept. 12, 2018.

(Photo: Jay Calderon/The Desert Sun)

The Imperial Irrigation District has a contentious relationship with state officials, dating back to a 2003 water transfer deal in which IID was pressured into selling large amounts of Colorado River water to cities in San Diego County and the Coachella Valley. The deal resulted in less water irrigating the farm fields of the Imperial Valley, in California's southeastern corner, and therefore less farm runoff replenishing the Salton Sea. To help convince IID to approve the deal, California passed a law saying it is the "intent of the Legislature that the State of California undertake the restoration of the Salton Sea ecosystem and the permanent protection of the wildlife dependent on that ecosystem."

It took years of mounting pressure from IID to push Gov. Brown to begin making good on that promise. But some observers say Brown's administration is still dragging its feet.

The Species Conservation Habitat would be built by state agencies. But it would be located on land owned by IID, meaning the state needs to negotiate easements with IID so it can use the land. IID and the state both want the project to get built, but the two parties have had trouble reaching an agreement on who should be held liable if any environmental problems arise during construction, or if funding runs out before the project is finished.

The Alamo River flows toward the Salton Sea near on Sept. 12, 2018. Some fresh water from the Alamo would be mixed with saltier water from the Salton Sea to create shallow wetlands at Red Hill Bay.(Photo: Jay Calderon/The Desert Sun)

Kevin Kelley, IID's general manager, said that sticking point makes him wonder if the state is really serious about fulfilling its promise to take responsibility for the Salton Sea.

"A large part of the delay has been in this struggle over the state's responsibility," Kelley said in an interview. "I thought we had moved beyond that."

Asked about the negotiations with IID and the slow pace of progress at the Salton Sea more broadly, a spokesperson for Gov. Brown referred The Desert Sun's questions to the California Natural Resources Agency, which is overseeing the restoration program.

Keali'i Bright, deputy secretary for energy at the California Natural Resources Agency, said the governor's office is "completely behind us" on the Salton Sea and has been "critical in helping us along the way." He also said it's crucial to get the easements right for the Species Conservation Habitat, especially since the language in those agreements can be used as a blueprint for future restoration projects on IID-owned land.

The Red Hill Bay Restoration Project will cover about 500 acres of exposed playa with wetlands habitat. The site is seen here on Nov. 5, 2015.(Photo: Jay Calderon/The Desert Sun)

Bright said restoration projects should move forward more quickly once the easements are worked out. But he acknowledged "complex issues" that still need to be resolved.

"There's many layers of liability with these projects," Bright said. "There's liability once you get a project onto the ground, what happens if those projects are damaged... These are lands that have lots of existing land ownership issues. They also have a lot of toxicity and other types of things that are known and unknown because they've been essentially places where (agricultural runoff) has drained forever and ever."

Red Hill Bay was supposed to be the first tangible restoration project at the Salton Sea. But after the groundbreaking ceremony three years ago, officials from the two agencies building the project — IID and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — realized several changes were needed. The soil was wetter and less firm than they expected, making it difficult to move equipment and build solid levees. The mechanism for bringing water from the lake to the artificial wetlands wasn't going to work. Land-use complications, including underground geothermal leases, were harder to untangle than expected.

"The project the way it was initially configured would never have worked," said Graeme Donaldson, who recently left IID to work for a geothermal company after several years as the agency's Salton Sea program manager. The November 2015 groundbreaking ceremony for Red Hill Bay, he said, was "two years premature, to be honest with you."

The Red Hill Bay restoration project will cover about a square mile of exposed lakebed with shallow-water wetlands habitat. The site is seen here on Sept. 12, 2018.

(Photo: Jay Calderon/The Desert Sun)

After the groundbreaking, the project's expected costs grew from $3.5 million to $5.5 million. One of the biggest changes was the addition of an offshore barge, which will hold the pumps that push water from the lake back to Red Hill Bay. (Some of the water for the wetlands project will also come from the nearby Alamo River.) The barge will sit on stilts, which can be retracted and moved farther out to sea as the water recedes.

"As sea levels drop, you lift the legs up, you float the barge and move it to the next location," Donaldson said. "You're back in business again, three days' delay."

The Red Hill Bay project is still far from finished. Eventually, it should provide 530 acres of shallow wetland habitat for migratory birds. But at the moment, IID is still working out contracts to buy the barge, mount the pumps and install pipelines. Schoneman said that should all be done in six months, and there could be water on the ground within a year.

But he also acknowledged it could still take longer.

"There's been delays so far. There's no reason why we'd expect delays to stop," he said.

Chris Schoneman of the Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge examines the water near the Red Hill Bay restoration project site on Sept. 12, 2018.(Photo: Jay Calderon/The Desert Sun)

Another challenge will be getting the barge on the water. Schoneman and Donaldson said they could find just one location along the entire shoreline that still has deep enough water to launch the barge. It's a spot behind Obsidian Butte, a lava dome near Red Hill Bay. Schoneman said the water there is about three feet deep, close to the shore.

Schoneman kneeled at the water by Obsidian Butte on a recent morning, pointing out brown pelicans as tiny waves lapped at the shoreline. He said the Salton Sea still draws tourists from around the world, many of whom wade into the water. Others are hesitant.

"I tell our visitors, they ask us a lot — is it safe to go swimming in or whatever? Yes, absolutely," Schoneman said. "It's just salty."

Sammy Roth writes about energy the environment for The Desert Sun. He can be reached at sammy.roth@desertsun.com, (760) 778-4622 and @Sammy_Roth.

Work goes on at the Red Hill Bay restoration project at the Salton Sea on Sept. 12, 2018.